Edward Teller was born on January 15, 1908, in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary). His family was Jewish.

In 1926, Teller went to study in Germany. By 1930, he earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Leipzig. From 1931 to 1933 he worked at the University of Gottingen.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany. Many Jewish scientists realized that they had no future there. In 1934 Teller left for Denmark to work with the physicist Niels Bohr at the University of Copenhagen.

In 1935 Teller went to the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 1941. That year he joined physicist Enrico Fermi’s team of scientists at the University of Chicago. The team was working on a project to break apart many atoms. They believed this process, called fission, would release a huge amount of energy.

In 1943 Teller joined physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s laboratory in New Mexico. The goal was to make an atomic bomb that got its force from the splitting of atoms. Because World War II was taking place, there was a race among countries to develop such a bomb. Oppenheimer’s lab succeeded in being first in 1945. During this time, Teller thought about making a more-powerful bomb that would get its force from fusion, or the joining of the nuclei of atoms.

In 1945 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. The horrible destruction made many scientists think that atomic bombs should never be used again. Many also thought a more-destructive fusion bomb, or hydrogen bomb, should not be made. Teller did not agree. He thought a hydrogen bomb would prevent future wars.

By 1950 the Soviet Union had learned how to make atomic bombs. The United States wanted to have a stronger bomb and asked Teller to make it. Teller’s team finished the hydrogen bomb in 1952.

In 1952 Teller helped create a weapons laboratory in California, where he served as director from 1958 to 1960. He taught at the University of California from 1953 until 1970. In 2003 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Teller died in Stanford, California, on September 9, 2003.

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